Libya and the Middle East

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady always speaks about these issues with great passion. I think that she is right to draw attention to what people are doing in Libya, where they are showing extraordinary bravery. As we have seen across north Africa and the middle east, this is not an Islamist revolution but a people’s revolution. People want the sort of freedoms that we take for granted in this country.

I have to tell the right hon. Lady that introducing a no-fly zone is not without its difficulties and problems. Libya is an enormous country. We would be trying to cover a vast area, and a serious amount of military assets would be required to achieve that. Furthermore, it would not necessarily stop all oppression of the Libyan people, because there are ways of carrying that out other than through helicopter gunships and planes. However, I think that it is one thing that we need to look at urgently and plan for, in case we find—as we may well do—that Colonel Gaddafi is taking further appalling steps to oppress his people. That is why the conversations are taking place today.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

It has been good to hear more muscular liberalism this afternoon. The Prime Minister rightly called Gaddafi’s rule an illegitimate regime that has lost the consent of its people. When does he consider that it was last anything other than that?

[The Prime Minister]

I have never supported Colonel Gaddafi or his regime, and I think that his regime is illegitimate. Clearly that prompts the question of how long we are going to go on recognising it in any way, which is why I have requested another urgently needed piece of work. We must ensure that we do everything that we can to isolate it. We must cut off money, cut off supply and cut off oxygen from the regime, so that it falls as fast as it possibly can.